# Superteam USA accelerator startup Spout closes raise of $2 million or more Beyond Speculation, a Stabledash show. Oct 30, 2026. Nicky Scannella. https://live.stabledash.com/shows/beyond-speculation/episodes/how-superteam-usa-helps-solana-startups-hire-find-users-and-SwiHIsaGMrs Superteam USA describes running a 30-team Solana accelerator: it screens startups, helps with token raises and recruits beyond crypto, while saying AI has made distribution matter more than product. Spout, a startup in the Superteam USA accelerator, just finished a raise of $2 million or more, Zach Fowler said on Stabledash Live. The accelerator has 30 teams and started in March, he said. ## Fractional executives for 30 teams Fowler says the Superteam USA team is four people working across the accelerated startups. They help with token raises and work directly with MetaDAO, Metaplex, Meteora, Crafts and others. He says there is no team in the crypto ecosystem, "or even a little bit into AI", that they cannot put a founder in touch with within an hour. ## Screening startups, not gathering members Fowler says the US program is different from the wider Superteam model, which tries to gather as many members of the local Solana community as it can. Superteam USA requires a company first, then checks whether it has a $100,000,000 plus ceiling. He says the team has grown more lenient about Solana integration as it moved into AI and agentic payments. He points to US advantages: lots of VC funding, strong engineering universities and a long history of unicorn startups. To recruit outside the crypto bubble, he is talking to accelerators and residencies such as YC, setting up a booth at a blockchain conference at UT, and co-hosting a hack night at the Miami headquarters with the Google Gemini team. ## What holds token raises back Fowler argues onchain raises need even more platform options than Metaplex, MetaDAO, Backable, Crafts, Seedplex and Bedrock/Meteora. He says founders do not have time to manage a token community or explain tokens to their VCs, and cannot be worrying about their token going to zero. ## AI and the case for distribution Fowler says AI has cut the cost of design, legal and content creation exponentially and reduced how many engineers are needed. He says non-engineers from traditional finance in the program are building financial tooling and trading platforms themselves. He predicts the founder of the first solo-founder billion dollar company is "probably already born". Because technology is likely no longer a moat, he says, distribution has never mattered more. Nicky Scannella added that only one or two members took up an offer to appear on the show, and that he got good at public speaking by failing 100 times after first going on stage in 2021. Taken together, the speakers describe Superteam USA as a selective, hands-on accelerator. Their view is that capital and AI tools are easier to come by than before, so founders win on distribution and on being able to talk about what they build. ## Key takeaways 1. Spout, one of the startups Superteam USA works with, just finished a raise of $2 million or more. 2. Superteam USA has 30 teams in its accelerator, run by four people working as fractional executives, and it helps with token raises alongside MetaDAO, Metaplex, Meteora and Crafts. 3. Zach Fowler says AI has made technology easy to copy, so founders should put distribution and messaging ahead of polishing the product. ## Chapters - 0:00 The guest jokes about the show's high production value - 1:20 Superteam USA runs as an accelerator with 30 teams - 5:05 Recruiting outside the crypto bubble through colleges and YC - 8:14 Superteam USA screens startups instead of gathering community members - 12:03 Token raises grow tenfold only if they suit founders - 16:22 Almost any business can benefit from raising onchain - 22:04 AI cuts startup costs and lets non-engineers build protocols - 25:34 Working closely with founders is addictive and draining - 27:42 First-time founders should raise early and prioritize distribution - 29:45 Founders should practice public speaking through podcasts and stages - 35:30 Wrap-up with an ecosystem media pitch and contact details ## Transcript **Nicky Scannella** (0:00) GM GM. **Zach Fowler** (0:01) GM. So I didn't realize the type of operation you guys had here. This is too this is too much. **Drew Rogers** (0:07) I thought this is... To help too much in the best way. **Zach Fowler** (0:10) Yeah. Like, I thought it a casual conversation. You guys got, like, graphics and and cool AI videos and tickers at the bottom. Like, I don't I don't think I'm qualified for whatever this is. **Nicky Scannella** (0:22) Are overqualified. You are overqualified for this. And we had to level this up, man. Stellan is taking over the world. You're one of the one of the figures that is... No. Recall. You're one of the figures pushing the culture forward. I hope I hope you... I'm... I don't know if I should be offended that you thought this was gonna be a lower level production. **Zach Fowler** (0:50) Yeah. Hey. You know what? I said the words, you can take it however you want. It's just... I could see I could see I could see it golden Barry enough. Is this is this is legit stuff here. **Drew Rogers** (1:00) Appreciate it. Appreciate it. I don't know if you met him in the green room, but he's built a lot of fun stuff into the studio. And if you ever think about something we should add, let us know. But this is... This has been a few months to me. I met Ashley in the green room. Yeah. I think Andre is fine. They got to be behind the scenes, but he's clicking all the buttons and, building all the fun stuff. But, Nikki, we'd love just, like, quick TLDR high level overview. What do you spend, you know, what do you spend all your time working on? What is your role in the Solana ecosystem and specifically in The US? **Zach Fowler** (1:33) Yes. I'm trying to think how far back to stop here. I saw I saw that, you know, Maurice gave a little intro, which was great. So, yes, we definitely run like like an accelerator. That was sort of the vision that I had for super team for the... In The US. And my model there is... Oh, we just zoomed in on just me. Is that right? You guys are still here? Yeah. We're here. It's just ignore it. It's like it's like in the news. Yeah. And I'm talking. Oh, yeah. **Nicky Scannella** (1:59) Yeah, baby. Production **Zach Fowler** (2:01) value at... That feels that feels lonely, but I... Okay. I can talk to myself. That's fine. I'm a big, like, social cues guy, so when I can't see anyone else, I'm like, I'm... Do they think I'm an idiot, or are they liking what I'm saying? Am I getting a laugh? I don't know. The... We gotta... We... The the switching back and forth thing, can't do, though. We gotta pick we gotta pick one. Just stay here and run it. We'll let's go. Here. We'll stay here. We'll stay here. We'll stay I appreciate that. So running it as an accelerator, my time is mostly spent on... Think of us as, like, in the room with fractionally on the executive team for all of our teams that we're accelerating. So we have 30 teams in the accelerator right now. We started back in March. You gotta remember, there was a point where we had zero teams, then one and five and ten and up from there. So that keeps taking more and more of our time. So less time on recruitment naturally and more time with the 30 teams that we already have now. So fractionally, we're... It's me, Adena, Amy, and Zach that makes up our team. We're fractionally executives on all these teams, accelerating them with go to market, content creation. We are helping with traditional VC raises, which, like, for instance, like, one of our teams... Our team... One of the teams we work with Spout just finished a two plus million dollar raise. We're helping with token raises as well. We work directly with, like, MetaDAO, Metaplex, Meteora, Crafts, and others as well. We help with hiring. We help with finding clients and users. Huge on the BD partnership side. Our team is very lucky to have, you know, and I think, like, you know, Maurice can speak to this as well, like, and he's he's in the same shoes that I am, an insane network of friends that we've all built and, like, sort of shared experiences that nobody else can relate to. So as, you know, the teams in our accelerator need to talk to whoever, it's like, yep. We know them. They're a friend, like, either in a past life, like, a different company or now. I would sort of like to brag that there's no team within our crypto ecosystem or even a little bit into AI now that we can get you in touch with within an hour. That's... Which I think is super important to some of these startup founders that might feel like they're on an island. And it's like, you're not alone. Like, you've got a whole... We got a whole family behind you. On the recruitment side of things, we're very heavily trying to recruit outside of the bubble, which sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. But we found that the... There's so much crossover between bleeding edge in the AI world and then in the blockchain payment space. So I've been trying to infiltrate San Francisco a bit, you know, talk to some of the people of other accelerators and residencies, like your YC and your speed run on the West Coast, and then, like, your, you know, in Colosseum, and then Alliance on on the East Coast, and starting to recruit outwards a bit. Yeah. That's... **Drew Rogers** (5:05) When we think about recruiting outside of the bubble, how much of this is, like, thinking, like, college grads poaching them, getting them early, or, like, trying to go think bigger out of the Googles, Amazons, Teslas, large enterprises of the world, maybe experience, I don't know if experienced devs. I I... My brain immediately goes, like, breaking outside of the bubble of devs, but I'm sure this is relevant across all categories from... I think marketing especially is probably one of the bigger ones. Yeah. How do you kinda think about those those two worlds and, like you said, to to to break out of this bubble to make the pool bigger? **Zach Fowler** (5:41) Well, lucky and also unlucky for us, there's no, like, perfect solution. So we're mostly just guessing. And I'd like to call it educated guessing, but I think even that would be a reach. So, like, for instance, you know, we are we are setting up a booth at the blockchain conference at UT, which college x y z has luckily pulled us in for. We're good friends with Evan from the college x y z team. He's pulled us in. We're actually trying to get Riposta in there as well to get everyone nice and caffeinated. So that's like meet... You know, that's meeting college kids. Right? And that's like getting outside the bubble that way. Some are AI, some are blockchain based. There's already a group of kids, I call them kids. They're they're all in grad school, that wanna get into, you know, insurance of DeFi protocols. And I talk to them, and I'm like, guys, I'm like, I don't think you realize what, like, a nightmare this is and, like, how and how hard this is. And they're like, we wanna... Like, we think we can do it. And, like, I only met them through college x y z, and now I'm, you know, trying to help get them at least to zero to ones that can even be at the level where they could join something like an accelerator. So that's trying to grow outside the bubble that way, but still staying within blockchain. And then there's, like, the other side of things where you can find from more established teams, and that's, like, trying to infiltrate, like, the y c world, which is just you bring in one team that's former y c, and then they start making intros. And we've been very very blessed where we had one team that got into y c, and then we had an interest with another team that was formerly y c, and now it's... There's like six of them. And it's an awesome new network that none of them would have really interacted with Salon at all if not for that. We have next week, we're cohosting a hackathon in... It's actually a hack night at our headquarters in Miami with the Google Gemini team. And again, that's, like, outside the bubble. Cool. Big brands attract great teams, and you'd be surprised, like, you'd be surprised how much, like, a a team like Google is actually into, like, this grindy, like, let's all hack together for the night. Like Yeah. They really value that. **Drew Rogers** (7:53) You guys are streaming that? **Nicky Scannella** (7:56) What? **Drew Rogers** (7:58) I said, you streaming that? I said that would be, like, an epic livestream. **Zach Fowler** (8:02) We'll send we'll send Maurice to come stream it. What's your what's your hourly rate? **Nicky Scannella** (8:08) That's that's not appropriate for this talk right now. Oh, was it? No. Alright. It's alright. I'll figure out your rate. Something that, you know, I know what it's like for... I joined... I... I'm a Super Team USA member, full disclosure, through OpenApps who's my my my core gig, my love. You know, I know what it's like when I was working with Superdeen Germany and seeing other super teams over qualified... Seeing other super teams get started and, like, I know what that experience is like to to join a super team as a member in Germany Yeah. Or or UK. It's very different in The USA. Can you kind of walk us through that a little bit? Kinda give us an idea of how... Like, we've talked a bit about it, but I don't know if our viewers right now understand the difference between super team x y z and USA, and really like what that that onboarding, **Zach Fowler** (9:03) you know, first first few days experience might be. Because... And we don't spend like a lot of time explaining it, which is our fault. But at the same time, like, as you can tell, we're... We've got our hands in lots of different baskets. So we're spread thin that way. But... Yeah. So, like, when we're onboarding, it's... So the way our onboarding process works is, like, we have inbound, plus we're also doing this recruiting that I'm talking about now. And as we, like, recruit a team, then there's, like... They're meeting with me, then they're meeting with our full team, then we're then we're going in... Then we're going a third time, a third round where we're like, okay, what are your actual needs? Because that's what we're trying to see is, one, like, do you have a $100,000,000 plus ceiling? Right? That's that's an important metric for us. You know? There's nothing wrong with, like, a lifestyle business at all, but, like, we're looking for unicorns. And I always say that, like, I wouldn't myself wanna be a unicorn founder. It's a special sort of person that, like, would... That wants that. So we have to acknowledge, okay. That's what you're looking for. Two, if you're already well funded and don't need any resources and are already crushing it, then we just spend our time working with somebody else. Like, what do you what do you need us for? You know? And then that's just... And then three, it's like, what are... Like, what space are you building in? Is there at least potential that there could be some sort of Solana integration in the future? We've become more and more lenient with that as we've... Especially as we dove more into AI. And now with, like, agentic payments and sort of like, you know, if if you ever need to raise money, you could use Solana. If you ever need to accept or send payments, you could use Solana. So we're able to get a little bit further outside that. But, like, that's very different than, like, the traditional super team model that has worked so well globally that we've sort of built on top of, where it's more of like a gather in as many as you can from, like, the Solana community in that country. And then as you're starting to find, like... If you find, like, an engineer, for instance, that could be interested in building in Solana, like, you would be... Like, you would bring them in. Right? Where with us, I would say, like, one, you need to start a company, and then two, you have to prove you have to prove that your company meets these requirements, and then three, have to go through, like, our interview process. But that's that's the difference between, like, traditional super team and then the accelerator model. And it doesn't make one, like, better than another. They're just, like, very different for different purposes. We're very lucky in The US that we have tons of VC funding. Right? We have tons of great engineering universities. We have a long history of unicorn tech startups. Right? I mean, San Francisco is how many team... How many teams have come out of San Francisco that are now on, like, the s and p 400? You know what I mean? Like, we're just... We're playing with a different stack... Like, a different hand, different stack of cards, let's say. So I think applying the same model wouldn't make sense. **Drew Rogers** (12:03) So makes sense. This is a perfect segue because I wanted to ask about this video from October 19, talking about the plan to 10 x token races on Solana. We've also Mhmm. You know, we've seen Credible with MetaDAO with... Again, on the b two b side. I think we saw Solomon who's a super team member. We had them on the the other StableDash live show recently, and just this this notion of on chain capital formation. And even if you just wanna start a consumer product, you know, your startup, like, there's there's different paths now to take than just traditional VC funding. Can you help, like, kinda peel back the curtain to what is this plan to increase token raises as we see Internet capital markets continue to develop on Solana and branch out between just, you know, ultra super crypto native platforms to things like Credible, like Solmon, or again, what is this maybe other category of consumer apps that you want to see raising on on on Solana, but maybe aren't yet or are in the works? Yeah. **Zach Fowler** (13:01) So I'll start with what the path is to 10x ing. And actually, I I work from the founder backwards, less so than the investor backwards. I think we've sort of gone overboard with the idea of like these invest... Investor protections. We still sort of have PTSD from all of the all of the rugs. Right? But, like, all of that was garbage. Like, that... We shouldn't let that affect our decision making on traditional businesses, like raising on chain. So it... You have to have you have to have a setup that is friendly to these teams that are raising and that makes them feel comfortable. So now, like, where can you start from there? There's one optionality. So, like, all of the comp... Like, we have Metaplex and MetaDAO and Backable and Crafts and Seedplex and Bedrock slash Meteora. Like, we need to have even more options than that so that these founders feel like, okay. Like, I can find what feels the least risky to me. Maybe I already have current investors. Maybe I'm looking at exiting at a certain number. Like, you should be allowed to do all those things. You can't have the fact that you've now tokenized either all or some of your equity affect your long term plan, because then you're just not gonna do it. So it has to be, like, malleable to what you wanna do. I think the liquidity is there, so that's not a huge issue. The other, like, big pushback is founders don't have the time to manage a token community, and founders don't have the time to, like, explain token versus traditional equity to, like, their VCs. These things... Oh, and also, like, they can't be worrying about their token going to zero. Because when they think of a token, it's like, okay, you know, like, what if the market treats my business like a meme coin and dumps to zero? We all know... Understand why that is far less likely or even impossible to happen with these types of launches, but, like, perspective is everything and perception is everything. So it's very important that, one, we help with education, and we're working on some stuff to help with this as well, where it's like, okay. The clear differentiator between, like, a lemon or a shit coin, right, and then a business token, right, an equity token. There needs to be a clear distinction so people can see the difference and be like, hey. Like, everyone is educated enough that they're not gonna treat your business token like a shitcoin. Right? And also though, you're doing this, you're not losing any of the options day one. You can still exit when you need to, or if you want to sell, you can still do that. You can still raise some funds from traditional VCs in the future. It's not... Oh, and then the great part about, like, raising on chain is, like, you get the positive side, which is quick access to capital, being able to raise from a... Either a community that you already have or a brand new community, and now you have all these users that are invested in your success. I mean, that's really why this works so well while eliminating the risks that come with it. And I know we have a lot of work to do to get to that point, but if we can, like, check all those boxes, I think the 10 x is done. Like, we... We've reached it. **Drew Rogers** (16:22) If if you were speaking... I I kinda mentioned this idea with, some of these college kids going after insurance on chain. You're like, yeah. It's a whole beast. If you had this, like, call to founders right now... Because I think, like, there's a there's a little box that people think about, like, what are the businesses I can build on chain? Mhmm. How would you help people to break out of that box and think about, like, what company could I go start, raise capital on chain? Like, I think, like, the Repossa Coffee example. Like, when you're... If you were to talk to kids at this found... At this, college campus next week, what seeds would you be planting for, like, the businesses they could go start? **Zach Fowler** (17:02) Well, there's a difference between, like, if they were asking What share be? If they were asking for, like, a request for a start up, like, I could happily sit here and list things. Yeah. We can do that a bit, like, into, like, some some start ups that I think are needed. But I think I would start that with saying, like, instead of, like, closing your mind to ideas, open it. If you're building within... If if you're building anything that has social media, payments, an app, tech, AI, like banking, anything can utilize blockchain. Or, like, would your would your business benefit from being able to raise within a couple days versus six to twelve months, having instant access to that capital, having an incentivized group of initial users, like then this is a great... Then it's a business that you could build on chain. Right? Or at least a business that you could have in salon integration. So that's basically everything. Right? Does the business that you're working with, will it benefit from being able to send cross border payments back and forth at instant speeds for no cost? Like, again, that's all businesses. Now if you want, like, we can get into sort of, like, when teams come and ask me, like, what I think they should be building, you know, what we get into. **Drew Rogers** (18:22) I would love that. I mean, because I think that's like... Again, like, when you even think about... I think about the local business owner. The... I love the Reposa Coffee example. Maybe that's maybe that's too consumer. Maybe that's too, like, traditional business. But sometimes there's... You know, we have this propensity to think about that we have to go do something new and novel for it to be a successful business when it's like, hey. There's a small successful business. Maybe you live in a town that doesn't have a coffee shop, and it doesn't have a coworking space, and you need to raise capital. Like, that's maybe a a really, like, junior niche example. But like I said, what are those examples that we can sort of, like, open your minds to to think about that should be considering this this mechanism? Well, if if you're opening if you're opening a... **Zach Fowler** (19:06) Let's say you're trying to open a coworking space, you said, and you need to raise to do so. Like, well, raising on chain is quicker. You can get buy in from... Instead of going traditional VCs, you can have the people who wanna use the the coworking space buy in via stablecoins instantaneously. Right? If you need to get... And, honestly, this is a request for a startup. I think that on chain business loans, I have not found anything that works great. I think Coinbase might have something, but I think that's massive. If you have, like... I mean, if if you have a coffee shop or a restaurant or whatever, I mean, instead of doing the song and dance with your traditional billion dollar bank, like, if you can find essentially what is retail users that are willing to put up money for a certain amount of yield, there you go. You'll have to go through the traditional credit checks and all that and have your identity and all that involved, but, like, talk about something that blockchain could fix would be the speed of of those of those loans. You know? So request for startup and then also a benefit of of using, you know, of using Solana that way. **Drew Rogers** (20:09) You know, on that note Go ahead. We actually had a guest earlier today, and I don't know if you... You're familiar with American spend. They're ingesting and indexing American consumer spend data. Was actually one of his was, hey. You can actually build small business lending on top of our data so that, you know, if a coffee shop, doesn't have traditional credit, but you can see the transactions, obviously, they're doing a day, a week, a month, know, you then you could use that to essentially underwrite the loan. That was actually one of their calls. So I don't know if you've you've met with that team or or looked into what they're doing, but, interesting timing. It also reminds me of what a lot of b to b payments companies are starting to do now with with trade financing. So I definitely agree with you. Sorry to cut you off there. Didn't wanna lose that thought. **Zach Fowler** (20:54) No. You're good. Yeah. Because that that... We're gonna get more and more into that space, and it's like, you know, Maurice had mentioned before, like, it's it's speed. It's it's capital formation. Right? So, like, what businesses need quick access to liquid capital? It's... The answer is all of them. Right? Like, how many times is, like... Think about it. And, like, you know, there was, like, COVID sort of created this world where, like, a lot of restaurants were shutting down and stuff. Like, a lot of it was not just they couldn't get capital. It was the speed at which they were gonna get capital. Like, if if the rent is due for your restaurant in in a month, you don't have, you know, six months to argue and go back and forth over terms at the bank. Right? Like, if if you can find, you know, if you can find users or retail or whatever that agree... These are adults, right, that are agreeing, hey. We will lend you this money for this return. Like, why can't you do that? Right? Like, what's... Like, if it's consenting on both sides, like, what stops that from happening? And right now, it's just, you know, there's not enough blockchain adoption, one. And two, what we're talking about hasn't even really been fully created yet. So hopefully, someone's watching this, and it's like, oh, I can I can build that out? **Nicky Scannella** (22:04) Yeah. If you're listening, you've heard a few requests for startups here. Nikki, I was curious to kinda hear from you about... You know, you're working with over 11 new start ups in the Super Team USA cohort. Right? How many... Or not how many. How are these teams leveraging AI, and how is it changing the startup landscape and how teams are basically, like, operating from zero to one or or going through those, you know, those step function increases to to get attention, to get virality, to get, you know, product market fit. **Zach Fowler** (22:41) Okay. So you're saying... So there's 30 teams that we work with, and you're saying from within that subset? Yeah. So you're saying so the AI team within that subset? **Nicky Scannella** (22:52) No. I just, like, general... Like, you have a you have this deep... You have a you have a a a connection to start up that a lot of people don't have. Mhmm. And I'm curious to see how you're seeing them utilize AI. Not being AI startup, but just utilizing AI in their in their flows, in their growth, you know, like Yeah. We we Marketing. We do it more with less. **Drew Rogers** (23:18) Right. **Zach Fowler** (23:19) Yeah. It's it's decreased it's decreased the cost of design exponentially. It's decreased the cost of legal. It's decreased the cost of content creation, and it's decreased the amount of engineers that were needed. I I mean, if you guys were around for the NFT days, which Maurice, I know you definitely were. **Nicky Scannella** (23:44) Live that we live **Zach Fowler** (23:46) that shit together for sure. Yeah. There was something very funny, like a very... Which a concept almost sounds fake at this point, where, like, if you'd have a team of three devs, if even a single one of them left or rugged or whatever, like, the project was cooked. You have to, like, beg someone to come back. Like, the amount of time it would take to onboard someone new, get the old code, whatever, it was, like, so unbelievably dependent. Now it's a copy paste prompt saying, like, hey. This is where it's left off. Like, this is what this is what we're working with. Or, like, if a founder had to, like, become their own engineer even without an engineering background, like, they can. And we have examples of that, of legitimately, like, non engineers with, like, trad five backgrounds who are building, like, legitimate financial tooling and trading platforms themselves. Obviously, these teams, if well funded enough and raised, would hire actual engineers. But, like, the thought process that a... Someone with a traditional finance background building their own protocol, and then getting that protocol professionally audited. Like, the work that they did as a nonengineer and, like, having it passed, like, is insane. So, yeah, it's a it's a whole it's a whole new unlock there. It's sort of like the the... It it sort of said that, like, the first the first solo billion... The first solo founder billion dollar company, that person is probably already born. Right? The company isn't there yet, but, like, that person probably already exists right now, and they just haven't reached that point yet. **Drew Rogers** (25:34) What is the most fulfilling part of the work that you do working fractionally across all these teams? Like, what is the thing that, like, brings you the most joy and, like, you know, all said and done, you're just like, that was the thing that, like, kept me going? **Zach Fowler** (25:51) It's it's the time I spend with the founders. Like, it's the it's the phone calls, it's the video calls, it's the async chats. It's the therapy sessions sometimes. It's it's talking through the product together. It's talking to partners together. It's like dealing with, you know, this VC passing or this partner not responding and like... And then getting to building through that and then hitting success. It's like this person invested. This partner is integrating, this grant came through. Like, that journey is addicting beyond belief. You get to live... **Nicky Scannella** (26:34) I was gonna say you get to live vicariously through all of these wins, which is... **Zach Fowler** (26:40) I'm not jealous, but I'm a little jealous, like, gonna lie. Yeah. Well, keep in mind, there's there's always more losses than wins for every single startup. And I don't mean that, like, in whether one startup fails or not. I mean, like, for every one win, there's nine losses. And I mean that for, like, one person in team. And that's tough because I take all of it personally. Like, all... Like, I mean, I very much mean that. Like, if a team has a failure or a VC passes on, like, a team that I've recruited into the accelerator, I'm like, like, what could we do better? You know? Mhmm. So that part can be, like, a little bit emotionally exhausting, but, like, it is it is an it is an addicting flywheel for sure. And I, like, am literally delusional enough to believe that as long as every single one of the 30 teams in, like, our cohort have funding over a long enough time horizon, like, they will all succeed. That's... I I... Delusional, but I truly, like, believe that. **Nicky Scannella** (27:39) I love that. **Drew Rogers** (27:42) Last question, and we can get ready to wrap here. What... If... What's the biggest piece of advice that you give to, like, first time founders? Or what do they maybe most... No. No. That's a good that's What is the biggest sign... That's **Zach Fowler** (27:58) a good question. Advice. Surviving is everything. So, like, I... Like, don't be... Like, it's... Don't be afraid of the race. So many teams are, like, put it off and focus elsewhere. And it's like, if you're giving up this much equity for this, I'm like, guys, like, 20% of zero is zero. Like, it's teams that survive and stay well funded over a long... Especially if you're a good founder over a long enough time horizon, you'll make it. That's usually where they go wrong is they'll run out of funds, especially if they've been putting off a raise. The other thing is just because you're working or developing your product doesn't mean, like, you're working hard and doing everything you need to do. So I think there's sometimes a confusion that we run into, especially with, like, engineer brains, where where it's like, oh, I don't have time for this. I don't have time for that. I'm improving the product. And I'm like, you're building the best product in the world that no one will ever see, touch, or use. So, like, you don't get to decide what's important, if that makes sense. Because something's, like, easier for you, that doesn't mean it's, like, the most important thing. Like, especially now with... I know we keep saying it, but, like, especially now with, like, AI, like, your technology is likely not a moat anymore. Someone could recreate it. Yeah. And if you already did the work and made it, someone can recreate it in a weekend. So like distribution has never been more important. I watch phenomenal founders refuse to spend time on messaging and distribution, because they're like, I'm just improving the product, like, I don't have time for that. I'm like Yeah. It's not gonna work. Not even just for beyond speculation, **Drew Rogers** (29:45) but stay with Ash Live as a whole. There's definitely a lot of times where we've reached out to founders and like, hey. This is a busy time. We can't come on the show. And I'm like, I get it. But also, like, we want to help you with distribution. We want to sing your praises. We wanna give you clips. Mhmm. And I can't promise in two months when you, you know, reach back out that we'll have time on the show. So I can definitely relate to that point where sometimes I'm like, hey. Like, I know it feels like you're losing out on building the product, but, like, take thirty minutes. You should be you should be planning not just for our show, all media in the space, like do one podcast a week. Like that's a huge part of Mhmm. Your go to market and your distribution motion that is so easy to just like push off, push off, push off because you may not feel like it's the right time. And I would I would even add on to that is like, so a well produced high quality show like this with really cool sponsors is maybe a little bit intimidating to a first time founder. **Zach Fowler** (30:39) Sure. Feel free to feel free to practice on some smaller shows. There's plenty of hobbyists out there that do this for for vibes and for fun or balling on a budget, right, and don't have sponsors, like, go there and practice. Like, go there and treat it like it is a million dollar production. It is never a waste of time to practice pitching publicly live. That's that's the truth. And then I always say, like, the... Take every on stage opportunity you can possibly get. The amount of, like, trust and distribution you get from speaking on stage, and then also the the practice that you get. And you you could almost universal. Every, like, unicorn startup, period, there is at least one person who's a rock star on stage. Like, that's just... I mean, if they... Sometimes they have to hire it, but very often it's one of the founders, and it's... These are all dorks, us included. Like, I promise they didn't start out that way. They learned it. Right? Yeah. And for coming on this show, like, I'm look... Like, I'm looking at, like, these, you know, these sponsors at the bottom and, like, you know, you don't think it would be important for you to get in front of, you know, Blockworks and Altitude and Cast? Like, I promise It's not to. If if you... If you're pre seed, I promise, like, you need to be talking to those those teams. You want those teams to know who you are, and take you seriously. So for sure that everyone should be jumping at that opportunity. **Drew Rogers** (32:04) I could I could say anecdotally, we've been doing, like, sort of this pretty consistently since February, although beyond speculation is a new beat. We've had okay conversations with CEOs, founders that you would think have crushed it, and we've done the complete opposite. Some of the best conversations are from people you've probably never heard of and never seen on another show. So, call to founders here is just shoot your shot, take a chance, get good about... I I agree with you a hundred one hundred percent. Get good get good about talking about yourself. Like, that's okay. Need to do it. **Zach Fowler** (32:36) Yeah. For sure. Speaking of and to put... Maybe Maurice will put you on the spot, but in a good way. You would... You know, you would call... You had called out all the the super team members. Did anyone get back to you about trying to get on? No. They're a perfect example. 30... There's Yeah. Third... Not... There's there's like there's like 60 people in there, 30 teams. Maurice gave them all the opportunity to come on this show, and every single one of them saw that message and thought, I'm busy with such and such. **Nicky Scannella** (33:04) I I should I should preface that and say maybe maybe one or two, but not not enough that it like stuck in my head and I would have to go through my messages to double check and I'm going to go back in that chat and I'm gonna go back in other chats and offer it again. And I just want to echo what Nikki said, like, I'm very good at public speaking. I'm good at it because I failed a 100 times. And I got on stage in front of people in 2021 and stuttered and felt uncomfortable, And then I improved and then I got comfortable and I got good and everything in life is practiced. And I think, know, one of my favorite favorite sayings or or or or, you know, little little tidbits of knowledge is from from Michael Jordan and like, you miss every shot you don't take. And, you know, I'm I'm willing to I'm willing to lose, but I'm not gonna not try. And I think this is something that a lot of founders and a lot of startup teams kinda kinda struggle with that, like, be open to making a mistake, be open to tripping over your feet a little bit. And at the end of the day, that humanness and the reality that you are just another person is really going to come through. And and and I I never I never had... I never left those speaking engagements where I quote unquote didn't do well feeling like I lost. More often than not, people came up to me afterwards and they related to what I said Yeah. Because even if even if you think you didn't do a good job, you are your harsh critic. Right? And there are people in that crowd that look at you and will look up to you. And I can think of numerous occasions where this happened. And, you know, MJ, if there's anybody I want to embody it, it's gonna be Michael Jordan. Yeah. **Drew Rogers** (34:57) Well, hey, we can always clip that, Nikki, and then just tag all the super team members and just be... Call call to come on the show. **Zach Fowler** (35:05) I'm downfall for for sure. Every every single one of them should jump at the opportunity. **Drew Rogers** (35:10) The conversation is solved. I'm sure. To them. But that that that was great. So not not all are lost, but, yeah, please keep us in mind as you're coming across new founders. That's what this segment is for, especially with, within the Solana ecosystem. So, we really appreciate you carping out the time and and answering the call to come on the show. Yeah. For sure. No worries. **Zach Fowler** (35:32) This this was great, guys. Thank you so much for having me on. I I I would love the... We definitely wanna get you guys in touch with all the super team members. Luckily, we have Maurice as an insider, so I'd do that. I also, like, love the idea. Sorry to, like, do a... To end this with, like, a pitch. Please do it. But please, like... I think that to... Like, as, like, an ecosystem support thing, any team that is been proven to be legitimate that is entering either, like, a VC raise circuit or a token raise circuit should have, like, a group of, like, podcasts, like, that they all go on as, like, part of, like, the the selling journey, and, like, this should be on that list. Like, okay. Like, I'm doing a token raise on such and such platform. Like, I need to make sure I'm on StableDash, and, like, this is, like, the ones that you should you should do all of. You know? **Drew Rogers** (36:17) Love it. Yeah. Please, counter pitch to you too. If you're thinking of events and if you think of cool places that it would be awesome for us to show up in person and to also stream and do shows, we're thinking about that throughout 2027. I've even thought about, like, do I show up at the Colosseum office on, like, do we go live and talk to teams while they're building the thing? **Zach Fowler** (36:37) And even, like, the the interaction with even hackathons. So keep that in mind as well. I think both Oh, for sure. The first one is just the college x y z with their blockchain event in in UT that comes to mind, but that one's coming up right after breakpoint. So it's a a quick turnaround. **Drew Rogers** (36:54) We'll plan something for next year. **Nicky Scannella** (36:56) Yeah. Nikki, what what do you what do you wanna lead the people with? Like, where can they find you? What do you... What, you know, what's next on the horizon that they could get involved with or, you know, like and retweet, I don't know, whatever you want. **Zach Fowler** (37:12) So the best way to get in touch with me like publicly is Twitter, just at nickyscans. My telegram is the same. I will warn you all. I have 4,500 unread Telegram messages. That is not a hyperbole, that is not a joke, that is my reality that I live in. So feel free to message me there, but just know that like I love you and I want to talk to you, but just like, please, like, can... Like, if it's a long message, the first thing I had to do is just like, okay, like, I'll get back to this. Like, concise, bullet points, like, I promise we will shoot the shit and talk about all the hobbies you have in common once we're actually on a call with each other. But like for the first message, just bullet point out what you need. If you want like all the ways to contact me, it's... I actually own solana eco dot just exactly how it sounds how it's spelled, solanaeco.io. If you go to that website, you can get all my information, my LinkedIn, Telegram, Twitter, email, and then also link to the Super Team website from there. **Nicky Scannella** (38:11) Amazing. Thank you so much, brother. Yeah. Amazing. Appreciate you. We will have you on again in the future. We will have some more super team member cohort teams join in the future. And thank you again, man. Much obliged. **Zach Fowler** (38:27) Yeah. Yeah. Cheers, guys. Talk soon. **Nicky Scannella** (38:30) See you at Breakpoint.